“Is Grace Always the Result of the Moment?”

Lessons of a Novel’s Passage from Preaching Read through the Perspective of German Homiletics

Abstract

The study summarizes the homiletic lessons drawn from an excerpt of the novel Wintergewitter by the German author Kurt Ihlenfeld, using German homiletic tradition as a reference point. After presenting the novel’s historical context, the author examines theological questions related to preaching and sermons from three perspectives. Firstly, the author considers the preacher’s intentions and the content of the sermon. After providing a brief introduction to the history of homiletics, he outlines the views of Ruth Conrad, Friedrich Mildenberger, Gottfried Voigt, and Eberhard Jüngel on this topic. Secondly, the author addresses the issue of the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of preaching. In connection with this and based on the concept of the church in the Augsburg Confession, he explains the homiletic relevance of the dogmatic question of justification by faith, using the approaches of Frank M. Lütze and Reiner Preul. Thirdly, Martin Buber’s philosophical theory of dialogue is used to outline the homiletic consequences of the interpersonal nature of preaching, as discussed by Emil Brunner, Imre Veöres, Michael Lorenz, Albrecht Goes and Geritt Hohage. The concluding summary attempts to resolve the tensions raised by the study by interpreting the fifth article of the Augsburg Confession on church service, to answer the question posed by the preacher in the novel’s title.